Ocean’s Trash Has A New Life: Art

I think by now we all (hopefully) realize that as a planet, we have a problem with plastic littering our environment. Whether it’s plastic bags, plastic water bottles, or plastic ties, it’s everywhere. You see it on our city streets, our country roads, and in our oceans.

I won’t get into the damaging affects of this on our planet or wildlife just yet, (I’ll save that for another post) but I strongly feel that we have to figure out a way to draw more attention to this growing problem. After all, knowledge is power.

I get it. People feel like their contribution won’t help. It’s a helpless feeling that your choice to use a reusable bag or water canister versus a single-use plastic one really won’t make a difference. But you’re wrong. For every bottle plastic bag we don’t use, you are potentially saving a life.

I often think about the stories of my 5 year old daughter on the beaches of southern California. We would be playing in the waves and she would see a piece of plastic floating in the water. She would clammer through the sand and over the waves until she reached that bag and put it in the recycle bin. Proudly, she would trot back to me informing me that she “just saved a turtle’s life”. If all of us took that same approach I doubt our oceans and planet would be in the shape it is in today.

That’s why I love this story. There is a new exhibit at a museum in Anchorage, Alaska that is helping to bridge the gap, thereby bringing attention to what is happening in our earth’s oceans in an attempt to help people fully grasp this problem.